Class size appeal

[MotherWol]

So we’ve received our school allocation, and unfortunately we didn’t get our first choice - we’ve got our fifth (we’re in London). The school we had hoped for has two classes and a PAN of 50. Would we be able to appeal on the grounds that this is less than 30 pupils per class, and they should be able to admit 10 more children? What should we be aiming to put in our appeal to give us the best chance of success?

(not an expert) The main thing is to find out if this is a infants class xie appeal (in which case you'll need to prove a mistake) or whether, as you suggest the school has classes with fewer than 30 children in Reception and KS1. You really need to find out how the classes are organised, not just the PAN. It would be unusual for a state school to have 2 classes of 25 through the school. If (for example) the 150 children in Reception, Y1 and Y2 are divided into 5 classes of 30, then this would still be an infants class size appeal.

The building may be a constraint. If it’s in an old Victorian school building for example, they might not actually be able to fit more than 25 children physically into the room. I am not in London but we have a similar school in our town - everyone raves about the small class sizes but they are packed in like sardines!!

With a PAN of 50, it could be an infant class size case in that there could be 150 infant pupils, which is 5 full classes of 30. However 50 is a funny number and the school may well be working on 25 per class, in which it would not be an infant class size case. That is most likely to happen if the classrooms are on the small size.
I suggest you look at the school website and try and work out how many classes they have in current years, reception, 1 and 2

Are you sure the school doesn't have a mixed class (so one of reception only and a reception / yr 1) mixed class rather than classes of 25? Schools don't turn down pupils for small classes - they can't afford it!

Our school has an intake of of 45, 22 and 23 in each reception class. They then progress to mixed classes with year above/below as they progress through the school to maintain the 30.

That's pretty standard here (my part of west yorks) and they are considered full at 45.

Thanks everyone, to answer some questions, when we visited the reception classes aren’t mixed. I’m not sure about Y1/2, but I’ll try to find out. The majority of schools in the borough seem to have classes of 30, and the classrooms didn’t seem any smaller than the other schools we visited. It’s so frustrating - I know things may change before the start of term, but right now I’m so disappointed for her.

Splitting 100 year 1 and 2 children into classes of 30 or less, unless they just carry on with 25 per class, is difficult - they can't use the 'three classes across the two years' model.

Even if there are two single year classes of 25 in Reception, if adding an extra child to either of them would mean more than 30 in a year 1 or 2 class moving forward, 'future prejudice' would make an appeal an Infant Class Size one, unfortunately.

Does the website have an 'Our Classes' or 'Our Teachers' section, which gives a clue as to how many classes years 1 and 2 are divided into?

The only way that this can be an infant class size case is if there are 5 classes of 30 across years reception, year 1 and year 2. That would mean 50 reception and then 10 year 1 in 2 classes of 30 and then rest of year 1 (40 pupils) in with 50 year 2 pupils across 3 classes of 30. That is not a particularly good break down of the classes but the only way it can be an infant class size case that I can work out.
What the school is currently doing and what it intends to do in September are the key questions that need to be answered. I wonder what numbers are in current year reception and year 1.
If they just have 25 in each class then it is not an infant class size case and any appeals would start to be around the size of the classrooms . If they are normal size (52 sq metres+) then the school is going to have their work cut out making a case simply saying that they only want 25 in each class but detail is important.